Questions about the F2P Today

Hello, I just started playing Star Wars: The Old Repulic a week ago using the Free Trial to level 15 thingy. Now that the game is going to Free-To-Play, I am having some questions that I couldn't really find the answers to.

1. Will I have to start all my characters over or will my free trial characters transfer to free-to-play?
2. Will I be able to chat in at least general chat? With the free trial, I could not chat with any one, unless they whispered me first.
3. Will I be able to raise my crew skills above level 40? I hate having that freaking window pop up every time scavenge something.
4. Will I be able to use that Galactic Trade Network thing? In the free trial, i couldn't.

Sorry if these are really dumb questions, but like I said, I am VERY new to the whole SWTOR experience.

PS: What are some SAFE SWTOR sites to hit up for information? I know of MMOC and Torhead, and that's it.

I'll join you with my questions, if you don't mind and since they are relatively relative.

Last Christmas I got CE Box, since then I was subscribed three times for one month - currently I'm not. As of today, I guess if I want to play, my account needs to go under the "f2p" restrictions unless I'll pay for that (which I'm not sure at this time) and therefore the question I'm asking is:

How much will this affect my current characters and gameplay. Will my bars just dissappear ? Will I have less cargo holds ? Will my characters get deleted or "disabled" until I resub or pay for that again ? At this moment, I have lots of time so I wouldn't mind starting a new f2p acc just to see if the game deserves my money again and then I would return to my original acc with no restrictions. My problem is, is it worth the pain getting back to my acc now and see it destroyed by this f2p conversion or not ? I just don't wish for messed up account, thats why I'm asking and would maybe prefer starting a new one just for the f2p.

1.
You characters should all still be there. Due to the server mergers that took place it might be that some will have to be renamed though.

2.
I'm not a 100% sure, but I think you can use general chat in addition to group, guild and raid chat. Not sure about whispers. IIRC there will be some throtteling on general chat though so that F2P accounts can't be used quite as easily for credit sale spam and such.

3.
You should be able to raise your skills, but I think F2P accounts are only allowed one crew skill per character.

4.
Not sure, but I think you will have some limited access to the GTN.

I'm not that up to date on SWTOR fan sites, but I think Darth Hater is a good site to check for SWTOR info.

@Crysis:
The wording they use suggests that you won't loose stuff that you unlocked during your subscription so I assume that you will keep your bag space and cargo hold as well as that gear you got before the account went F2P. I would assume that you will only have access to two action bars until you subscribe again though.

another good resouce for information on ingame things is swtor-spy.com
for the GTN, if i remember right you can list acouple auctions, but the number of listings is restricted, don't know by how much though, it was on the swtor website :/

Thank you all for the responses. It's nice to see a community that is a little more mature than the WoW forums (yes i am coming over from WoW)

You are not the only one I'm sure.

As far as chat goes. On the PTR there was about a 30 sec delay in post to general only so that F2P couldn't spam.

Whispers, guild chat and private channels had no posting time limit.

The GTN is open to you but as a F2P gamer you will only have 2 slots to use to sell things.

You will only have access to one crew skill as a F2P gamer but you can level it to max should you choose.

The nice thing is if you spend a minimum of $5 once. Many restrictions are lessened and some removed.
Using your same questions. If you spend $5, you get unlimited chat, 5 or more GTN selling slots and 2 professions.

Depending on how much you plan to play it easily worth $5. (plus all the other things open to preferred players vs F2P only)

Originally Posted by Crysis

SNIP... the question I'm asking is:

How much will this affect my current characters and gameplay. Will my bars just dissappear ?

You will have 2 hot bars instead of the normal 4.

Will I have less cargo holds ?

Nope - You will have everything you purchased before you stopped paying to play the game.

Will my characters get deleted or "disabled" until I resub or pay for that again ?

None of your toons will be removed. You will have access to two character slots and you get to choose which 2. The others are frozen till you open those slots or subscribe again.

However, at F2P launch (today) you will get access to every toon as a past subscriber that is now F2P. That option will be removed later.

Blaine: Great question and we want to make sure we’re clear on this one. Subscribers will still have 12 character slots available on a single server. F2P players will have 2 (as will Preferred). At Launch, we are not enforcing the penalty on subscribers who convert to Free-to-Play, but we will in a subsequent patch. A further wrinkle is that if you have more than two and you delete characters at Launch, you will not get that slot back. Example: I have 10 characters as a subscriber this November, but in December I cancel my subscription. When I login, I can still use all 10 characters (for now), but I cannot create new ones and if I delete one, I will have 9 and not be able to create another until I go down to 1. Make sense?

At this moment, I have lots of time so I wouldn't mind starting a new f2p acc just to see if the game deserves my money again and then I would return to my original acc with no restrictions. My problem is, is it worth the pain getting back to my acc now and see it destroyed by this f2p conversion or not ? I just don't wish for messed up account, thats why I'm asking and would maybe prefer starting a new one just for the f2p.

I guess the real question is what do you consider messed up?

If you want to level from 1-50 for free then you should have no problem.
If you want to play end game, run a lot of PVP zones or flashpoints, then your not going to get the same game for free. You'll have to pay something beyond a few tries to each area per week that are free.

Really depends on what you plan to do with your time in game to decide if your preferred status is not enough.

However, I will add this. As a once paying customer, I would resub for one month at a minimum just to get your lump sum of free cartel coins. (needs to be done by Dec 20) It seems you could get around 1500 + coins. You could then unsub again and have a decent enough coin stash to remove some preferred status restrictions and still pay nothing after that.

I'll try to get to endgame with at least one of my characters (I know, 4 month and wasnt been able to level to the max level, so much alts and stuff to do elswhere.. just hadnt had the time) and then probably sub after I hit 50 so that I get the cpoints and can remove some of those restrictions.

I'll try to get to endgame with at least one of my characters (I know, 4 month and wasnt been able to level to the max level, so much alts and stuff to do elswhere.. just hadnt had the time) and then probably sub after I hit 50 so that I get the cpoints and can remove some of those restrictions.

Just to restate something so I make it clearer.

You're going to want to be a subscriber before Dec. 20 if you want the additional bonus coins.

If you wait to level to 50 before subscribing you might miss them unless you level really pretty fast this time around.

Dec. 20 is your deadline for the bonus coins. I should stop calling them free since you need to sub but they are a bonus.

Does anyone know, did they actually slow down xp gain for F2P, or sped up for subscribers? All they say is that F2P gain xp "slower" than subscribers, but I want to know how it compares to the rate before conversion.

Does anyone know, did they actually slow down xp gain for F2P, or sped up for subscribers? All they say is that F2P gain xp "slower" than subscribers, but I want to know how it compares to the rate before conversion.

I don't think they slowed it down, they simply disabled the rested xp ability. At least thats what I think.